Lavender Country

In 1973, Lavender Country's Patrick Haggerty released what has come to be known as the first gay country music album. With a recent reissue in mind, the 70-year-old pioneer talks about the shifting lines of cultural acceptance.

Patrick Haggerty released the remarkable self-titled album Lavender Country in 1973. It’s a breezy, old-school-outlaw country record that’s since been tagged as the first of its kind recorded by an openly gay man. The 10-song collection, put together with the help of the Seattle gay and lesbian community, sold 1,000 copies at the time, but the 2014 reissue by the North Carolina label Paradise of Bachelors has contributed to an unexpected resurgence. It’s easy to see why: These songs are played with a great 70s country twang, and their politics resonate way past the final notes, especially in today's culture of expanding equalities.

Something else that’s emerged during this reevaluation is the relationship Haggerty had with his father, a deeply caring Washington State dairy farmer who realized his son was gay early on, and tenderly let him know he was OK with it, without ever actually saying those words. In the 50s and 60s, Haggerty's father allowed him to dress up in girls clothes, and to try out for the high school cheerleading team with glitter on his face. It was during that day of tryouts, when he came to his son’s school to check on him, that he noticed Patrick ducked away because he was ashamed of his dirty farm clothes. He would later tell his son to be proud of who he was, because if he wasn’t, it would destroy his “immortal soul.”

I recently spoke to the 70-year-old Haggerty by phone to talk about his amazing year, the way young people view gender identity in 2014, what his father meant and means to him, and what it’s like to experience Lavender Country again 40 years later.

Pitchfork: When you released this record in 1973, did you imagine you'd be speaking exclusively to other gay men and women?

Patrick Haggerty: I certainly never had any illusions that it was going to catch on with a mainstream audience. I mean, I had fantasies, but they were ridiculous fantasies, and I knew that. [laughs] We made the album for gay people who were coming out and trying to come out. That's who we were trying to reach. We, the gay movement, wanted to memorialize our struggle in all kinds of artistic ways, then and now. So while Lavender Country's always had its straight supporters, at the time it was for us.

Pitchfork: When you released the album in the mid-70s, punk was starting up around the CBGB's scene in New York. Were you aware of punk then?

PH: I was. Seattle has always been a cutting edge city, kind of like San Francisco—though frequently even more cutting edge than San Francisco. In my mind, the artist that most represented what was closest to me politically and sexually was probably David Bowie. But I wasn't comfortable in that genre, it's just not who I was. I'm a little bit older, born during World War II, and I cut my teeth in the 50s, in terms of what was ingrained in me musically. So I was aware of [punk], but David Bowie was oblique. He wasn't hitting the nail on the head when it came to gay rights. He wasn't saying it, but rather pretending like he might say it in the next song. But he never did. I'm not faulting him—he was brave for what he did—but that's not what Lavender Country was.

Lavender Country live in the 70s

Pitchfork: There's definitely a punk ethos on the album, with lyrics like "tear the system down."

PH: Definitely. Many people talk about the punk character of Lavender Country, which always hits me a little bit by surprise. But in truth, a lot of Lavender Country is in-your-face punk shit lyrically [laughs] And it's supposed to be. That's what people who are grounded in punk relate to when they hear Lavender Country. At the time, it was very clear that no genre was going to have anything to do with what we wanted Lavender Country to say, and that we were going to have to do it ourselves. That's still kind of true in a lot of places. [laughs] But Lavender Country was produced by Seattle's lesbian/gay movement. In many, many, many ways, it would have been an absurd project to take on by myself. That's who we made it for and that's who we played it to.

Pitchfork: What were the reactions like at the time when you made the record?

PH: [laughs] There were a lot of different reactions. I think the reaction of 98% of America who heard about Lavender Country who weren't gay or very progressive minded was that it was outlandish and shocking and unacceptable. The priority was to keep it away from their children at all costs.

Haggerty playing the Seattle Gay Pride Parade in 2000

Pitchfork: Has it ever bothered you that people less familiar with the context or the history focus on a song like "Cryin' These Cocksucking Tears"?

PH: Let me talk about that for a minute. [laughs] "Cocksucking Tears” is both the boon and the bane of Lavender Country. That's what everybody remembers and that's what everybody refers to, but it really wasn't necessarily our intent. That was the song that got my lesbian friend kicked off the radio in 1974 for playing it. That's the one that was put on YouTube by some anonymous person, and then ended up at Paradise of Bachelors, who dug into it further and found out what it was. So "Cocksucking Tears" has been the leading song on Lavender Country, like it or not, all along. But there's a lot more to Lavender Country than "Cocksucking Tears".

It's just a song title, and it's the word that's so striking and outlandish. It had the propensity of turning the idea of Lavender Country into a cartoon, and Lavender Country is not a cartoon. So that's always bothered me. The interesting thing is that the culture has moved to the point where people are fine with it. I’m happy I've lived long enough to see it! They're finally ready to accept the fact that "Cocksucking Tears" is in Lavender Country and they want to find out what else is in the album. [laughs] That's quite refreshing! I want everybody to appreciate Lavender Country for what it really is, not just because it has a song called "Cocksucking Tears" in it. And that's happening! Finally.

Haggerty running for Washington State Senate with Nation of Islam running mates in 1988

Pitchfork: Lavender Country is just one part of your life. You also ran for office, raised a daughter, you're married. You have all these things outside the music. What is it like to suddenly have this part of your life come back and be put under the microscope in the internet age?

PH: What happened to me in the last six months is unparalleled. It's like a Biblical story. You couldn't even make a movie with a fantasy like this. I'm 70. I knew Lavender Country would define me musically, and I couldn't have a career anywhere in music because I wrote it. It was an albatross around my neck when it came to a musical career. But I knew that when I made it and I've never regretted that decision. But I had a whole life to lead, and I lived it. I wasn't ever expecting Lavender Country to do much of anything except what it had already done.

Pitchfork: What does your husband think? He’s suddenly married to a rock star.

PH: When I met my husband, Lavender Country was so dead that I don't even think he knew I made it until we were a couple of years into the relationship. It was not part of our lives. We were involved in some political activism, getting needle exchanges started and doing Act Up, which was a militant street organization around AIDS activism. I also had some health problems, and Lavender Country was not on the chart.

Then Chris Dickinson wrote an article about the history of gay people in country music in 1999, and she did a really good job of finding us and interviewing us and writing about how many out gay people there are in country music. At that time, she discovered that Lavender Country was the first gay country music, and basically proclaimed it as such. A couple years later, Country Music Television did a documentary on the “40 Greatest Firstsin Country Music” and they included Lavender Country, which was nice. There was some action around gay country in the early 2000s that I was participating in, but it went flat. Lavender Country went back to sleep. For the last 10 years I've been musically active—I sing old songs to old people. I have a partner who's older than me, a black man from South Chicago who plays a really mean harmonica. We do about a hundred gigs a year singing old songs to old people in retirement homes and Alzheimer's units and rehab centers and retirement complexes. That's who I am and that's what I do. I've been married for 28 years, raised my children, have a grandson. I was having a great life, I was fine. [laughs]

Haggerty with his daughter Robin in 1981

Pitchfork: What is it like performing these songs live now?

PH: We did a show in L.A. a couple of weeks ago, and it was interesting because while there were many gay people in the audience, it was not a gay crowd. It was basically young, white heterosexuals who love to follow music that they thought was hot. [laughs] It was an amazing experience. It really was. And man, you could've heard a pin drop while we were playing. The eyes were just wide open, and they were not intimidated by "Cocksucking Tears". They were so beyond it, and eager to hear what Lavender Country was about. It was just amazing!

Pitchfork: There've been many strides in gay rights over the years, but obviously it's still not perfect. How do these songs resonate to you in 2014?

PH: Well, the line has moved. When we made Lavender Country, the line was between who's straight and who's gay. It was a faulty division in the first place because scientifically we all know there's a lot of blur. People are crossing over all the time, and in their actual sexual behavior there's not really a discrete line between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In fact, sexual behavior runs on a continuum. That's the truth. The gay-straight line is a little artificial in the first place and it's a-historic. Politically, there hasn't really been a grouping of gay people in a lot of different cultures, though of course gay behavior has been there all along. So there's an artificial line, but it's one that was necessary to move the movement forward. And now the line has shifted.

My guitar player, a guy I've been running with for years, lives in San Francisco, and his sexuality is somewhat of a blur. Right now, he's involved in a heterosexual relationship, but I know his history very well and he's a crossover. He said the line has shifted from who you love to who you hate. It’s an anti-bigotry line. The bigots are on one side and the rest of us are on the other. That’s the new line. Gay or straight is out the window. It’s a non-issue. That’s not what’s real, that’s not what’s happening. The issue is: Do you hate somebody or not, and why.

Of course, the people who hate homosexuals are also the ones who hate black people and women and any kind of equal rights movement. That’s where we are. Lavender Country is resonant to everybody now on one side of the line. Now, anybody who doesn’t want to be a bigot can listen to Lavender Country and hear what it’s saying. The pool of people who are ready to hear Lavender Country has skyrocketed exponentially in the last 10 years. It all just took me by complete storm. The really exciting part, of course, is how it’s a big fat ego trip, but that’s ridiculous. I’m too old for that shit. The real bottom line point is that it’s fabulous I’ve lived long enough to see this shift. It’s a huge victory that Lavender Country is making a splash. And before I go to my grave I'm getting the last laugh, because Lavender Country is going to outlive me.

The Haggerty family in 1945

Pitchfork: There are these amazing stories about your father teaching you to be proud and not to hate. When did you realize that you were so lucky to have him as a father?

PH: I always loved my father and knew that my father loved me, but when I was a child, I thought was he was just another dad who loved his kid. There wasn’t anything exceptional about him. Because he never went to a place and said, "Aren’t you lucky you have a father like me? Don’t I stand out? Aren’t I different from all the other fathers, because I’ll put up with behavior from you and no one else will." He never went there. He never represented himself that way.

I had no gay consciousness, I didn’t know I was going to be homosexual, I didn’t know what it meant. My dad couldn’t discuss that issue with me. He had to show the love that he had for me regarding my sexual orientation in all kinds of subtle ways. It wasn’t something you talked about. It was something you did. It was a sparkle in his eye.

When I was 30, and I was out, I’d talked to so many different gay men about their relationships with their own fathers. Then, 10 years after he died, I began to realize what a truly unusual and remarkable man he was for his time and place. It’s incredible. I was so blessed to have a father who loved me. And he knew very well what I was going to be when I was six years old. I didn’t know it, but he did. Which sissy’s father in rural America in 1960 is telling them, "Whatever you do, don’t sneak because you’ll ruin your immortal soul?" One in a million, one in three million, one in 10 billion? So I didn’t know it at the time, but I’m 70 now and I’m looking back and going, "You had a really, really amazing father." When he said "don’t sneak," I said, "You’re right dad, I’m not going to sneak." And then here comes Lavender Country, fuck all of you. If you would’ve had my dad, the patron saint of all sissies everywhere, for a dad, you would’ve written Lavender Country too. You’re supposed to write Lavender Country with a dad like that.

Pitchfork: Are you going to write any new songs?

PH: Hey, everybody’s got big plans and so do I! I do have some new material; I’ve been told that somehow the story of my father should really come out in full. I'm well into that. I’ve got some new songs that have been recorded and some songs that haven’t been recorded. I’m not done. I’ve always got my eyes out for new things. I might keel over tomorrow but I’m not done fantasizing about what to do next. I’m actually getting more and more focused. This Lavender Country stuff has gone on long enough—been there done that. It’s time to move on.

I’m profoundly heartened to know that each generation is going to know what Lavender Country was. It was a community that produced Lavender Country and it’s a community that’s listening to Lavender Country now. A big community. It’s a victory. It’s not my victory, it’s our victory. Everyone who’s capable of listening to Lavender Country gets to be in on the victory. Congratulations to all of us.